I'm about to graduate medical school in May and I'm thinking of joining the reserve during residency. My main question is: would I get to do anything except work in the hospital? I like the outdoors and obviously firearms. Is there additional training that one can volunteer for (like jump school for instance) that does not directly involve one's job? Sorry for my total ignorance on this subject. Thanks,

AF-Odin

08-13-2008, 18:11

Lots of opportunity to do stuff. Part depends on your specialty. Not much need for an OB/Gyn or peds Doc as a "Surgeon" with an Infantry BDE, but Emergency Med, Surgery, or even Internal medicine will probably land you on the short list to a hospital in Iraq. Even the Family Practice docs used to routinely deploy to NTC--had an acquaintance that was assigned as the Hospital Commander at Bragg and the then XVIII Corps Commander insisted that he go to jump school before reporting---45 year old full colonel doc in jump school!!!

deadday

08-13-2008, 19:40

There are lots of opportunities to leave the country and rough it with the grunts...BAMC is constantly sending teams to down to various South American countries to set up shop for a couple months...Also sending teams to African countries a lot lately as well....Then of course there's the deployments to Iraq and Asscrakistan...